Experimental study on the seismic behaviour of mortise-tenon joints of the ancient timbers

Mortise-tenon joints (MTJs) have been playing a crucial role in traditional timber structures to resist service and earthquake loading. In the present work, an experimental study was carried out to investigate the seismic performance of joints of ancient timber structure. Five types of joints from Fu-Jiu Zhou house, a historical building in Yangzhou city, were selected as the test prototype. All of the members of the test specimens were directly extracted from the aged building and were manufactured according to traditional methods. Based on the cyclic loading tests, efforts have been made to investigate the hysteresis curves, backbone curves and energy dissipation of the MTJs. The test results indicate that the bearing bracket in the tenon can improve pulling-out resistance capacity, rotational stiffness and energy dissipation of MTJs, and reduce the bending capacity. It is suggested that the dovetail MTJ may be one of the best connection configurations for pulling-out resistance and bending capacity.